IF life with HIV/AIDS were not challenging enough, the Chinese government seems determined to make it harder by suppressing claims for compensation.
When Tian Xi was nine years old he contracted HIV/AIDS from a blood transfusion at Xincai Country No 1 People’s Hospital in central China’s Henan Province.
He is now 23 and since his late teens he has taken up his family’s call for compensation for himself and others similarly affected.
On August 6 he was detained by police in Xincai County without his medication or any money, and later arrested. He was taken to the hospital for treatment on August 16 and taken into criminal detention on August 19; his parents were told two days later.
Mr Tian also has the debilitating liver virus hepatitis B and its more deadly cousin hepatitis C.
His mother and aunt went to the police station and asked to see him on August 21, but they were turned away. They were only able to send some clothes in to the pre-trial detention centre.
“Dong, the police officer in charge of my son’s case, didn’t tell us what is happening to him, only told us that he is ‘safe’,” Mr Tian’s father, Tian Demin, told The Weekend Australian.
“My wife gave Dong 100 yuan last week and asked him to give it to Tian Xi to buy some food, for he needs nutrition, but Dong returned the money when he came back from the detention centre.
“The authorities have issued a notification of arrest and said they will sentence him.”
Mr Tian Jr was already a target for authorities. He had previously been detained in Beijing, thrown into a “black jail” — shadowy detention centres run by local governments for those who come from the country to the capital to petition the central government.
On July 9 the local county government issued a statement about him. “Tian Xi has a complicated background, and his thinking and behaviours are deeply affected by (exiled activist) Wan Yanhai,” the statement read.
“He went to Beijing twice recently to make illegal petitions and brought great inconvenience to the local government’s supervision of him.
“It is suggested that the police department crack down on him.”
Mr Wan, the director of the Aizhixing Institute — the most prominent non-government organisation in China helping AIDS patients — was forced to flee to the US in May, before Beijing authorities took action on him. Before he left, his group had been cut off from foreign financial aid, like many NGOs in China.
The mainland’s most high-profile HIV/AIDS agitator, 82-year-old doctor Gao Yaojie, left China for the US last year and fellow activist Hu Jia was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison on the charge of “inciting subversion of state authority” in 2008.
China officially has 750,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS. But people who work in the area believe the number is understated.
“It’s generally believed that the official released figure on AIDS patients in China is underestimated, and the authentic number might be a million plus,” said Chang Kun, director of AIDS Walk, an NGO that helps people with HIV/AIDS.
“The government wants all AIDS patients, as well as NGOs, to be under their control.
“For the patients, if they complain and claim more compensation, they will feel a crackdown. Local government officials fear AIDS patients in their area might deter outside investors and affect their political achievements, affect their personal career.
“They want AIDS patients to silence themselves, not to let the outside know of their existence.”
Tian Xi’s father said the Xincai county government had “severely suppressed AIDS patients who wanted to ask for compensation”.
“Last year, a patient was arrested and kept in detention for three months, without medicine on time,” Mr Tian Sr said. “He died a week after he was released.”
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